Sorting and Getting Sorted

Anyone who was to walk into my workplace lately might think that we are actually a living, functioning factory. There is fabrication going on, a little production, some painting. Parts and things to make parts out of still come in the receiving door and finished goods still go out the shipping door. There is frenetic activity and piles of stuff everywhere. There is also overtime a-plenty, at least for my group (shipping and receiving). But the factory is in its last weeks of existence. All of the activity is geared toward finishing the final orders and packing things up. Most of the shipping going on isn't finished goods, but parts from the stockroom and machines from the floor being sent to their new homes, or to the scrap yard. One day there will be a brand new open space on the floor, and the next it will be filled with a collection of items being assembled for the final auction of things no one else wanted (scheduled for December). A kind of factory OCD seems to have gripped the maintenance guys who put this stuff here. Groups of like-items stand in rows - shelving units, carts, plastic skids, bubble wrap dispensers, chairs, wastebaskets, wire-carrying-rack-things that I don't know the real name of. There is still a production meeting every morning, though I don't really know why. I don't fill parts bins anymore because all of the areas that I supplied are shut down now, and gone. The most memorable one was last week. In the morning I filled their bins, and they worked the line until lunch. By the end of the afternoon, the floor was clear - every table and piece of equipment was in shipping waiting to be crated. And the next day everything was gone. My main job now is to empty the stockroom of "scrap", which is everything that doesn't belong to a line that is moving. It has to be sorted into precious metal (things like copper, brass, and aluminum), regular metal (going to a local scrap metal dealer), and everything else (being bought by a company that pays some kind of salvage price for it all). As I dump each tray of finished metal parts into the scrap bin I have to try not to think too much about it. I see parts that I used to use to build things, and things that I have moved around the plant during their production stages, and I can't help but remember how much time and effort they paid for to create this item that I am now just throwing away. Sometimes I see something that triggers a memory of a job I had here years ago that I hadn't thought of in a long time, hardly even remember doing at all. And it just makes me sad to think, once again, that it's all about to be gone forever. I've been taking surreptitious pictures when I can, both of things that have changed (empty rooms, the OCD areas) and things that I want to remember. My favorite row of the stockroom shelving - dark, quiet(er), soothing to drive down. What it looks like to sit in the shipping dock door early in the morning, enjoying the breeze and the quiet. The train tracks that come right into the receiving area, from some long-ago time when this place had its own railroad siding, when so much came in to be processed that they needed to bring it in by the train carload. I wasn't here during the peak of employment and work, but it must have been a very different place than I know. It's back to being horribly hot, and even when they have the a/c on I am constantly sweaty. And every day this week I have been dirty by fifteen minutes into my day. There have only been rare occasions when I have truly gotten dirty at work here, even though it's a factory. Now, though, I'm constantly surrounded by dust falling off of parts that haven't been touched in years. And in case you hadn't figured it out yet, sweat plus dust equals mud. More than once I have seen myself in the restroom mirror with a smear of mud across my cheek where I have wiped sweat from my face with the back of my glove. I have sneezed more in the last week than I have in the last year, probably (no, I don't actually keep track). And I haven't had time to swim much, so I'm just thiiiiiiis close to homicidal by the end of my 10-hour days. Yesterday I was handed my packet of retirement papers, only eight days after they were requested (that might be an efficiency record for our "HR" person). I haven't yet really looked at them, but I'll have them signed and returned on Monday. There aren't a lot of actual decisions to be made if you're single, except for assigning beneficiaries for various things. I just have to sign up for everything, then wait for November 1 to see if I actually get my first check on time. We'll see.